When 21-year-old Ishika Sharma first picked up a romance manga, she had no idea she was stepping into a vast world of expressive art, complex storytelling, and deep emotional connections. Today, like a growing number of young Indians, she counts manga — along with its Korean and Chinese counterparts, manhwa and manhua — as an integral part of her entertainment.
“It’s become quite mainstream now,” says Sharma, a college student. “A lot of youngsters read this, even if they aren’t very vocal about it.”
Once considered a niche interest relegated to fan forums and pirated DVDs, Japanese manga is quietly transforming into a mainstream cultural force in India. From classrooms to crowded metro rides, young Indians are scrolling through titles such as Naruto, Attack on Titan, and One Piece. These stories, told in expressive stills and dramatic arcs, are gaining a foothold in a country whose media landscape has long been dominated by Bollywood and cricket.
But this is not just a story about Japanese comics that have been popular in India for over a decade. India’s fascination with East Asian graphic storytelling is diversifying. Once a fringe subculture, manga is finding new fans through streaming platforms, social media, and pop culture events such as Comic Con India.
Manga, manhwa, and manhua
While often grouped together, manga, manhwa, and manhua differ in format, origin, and storytelling approach.
Japanese manga is typically black-and-white, serialised weekly or monthly, and read right to left. Korean manhwa, which gained global traction through digital platforms such as Webtoon, is often in colour and vertically scrollable. Chinese manhua, which blends digital and traditional print aesthetics, often draws from historical, fantasy, or wuxia themes and can be read either left to right or vertically.
Credit: (left to right) Itachi Uchiha (Flickr/godchaos5’s); The Dawn to Come (Anime Planet); and The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (Kuaikan Manhua).
“Among readers in India, manga has a strong fan base, but manhwa is also becoming very popular, especially among those who are into K-dramas or K-pop,” says Sharma. “Manga fans often start with anime, while manhwa fans usually come through Korean culture.” Manhua, Sharma adds, draws in readers who are already watching Chinese dramas. “Each form has its own aesthetic and emotional style.”
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Anime as the gateway
For most Indian fans, anime (the animated version of manga stories) is the entry point.
“In the West, people used to frown on anime because it seemed childish,” says 22-year-old Anirudh K, a Shimla-based economics student. “But then came a game called Pokémon created by Satoshi Tajiri on a popular console, Nintendo Game Boy. The premise was simple: catch better and stronger Pokémon, train them, and battle harder and harder enemies till you beat them all.”
While Pokémon first caught fire as a game, it soon grew into an empire, with trading cards, animated series, and eventually global media coverage. “At one point, news channels were warning parents that Pokémon was Satanic. That’s how big it got,” he says, laughing.
“That whole explosion — Pokémon as a game, then cards, then a show — that’s what started anime’s journey into the West. After Pokémon came Dragon Ball Z, then, for girls, there was Sailor Moon. Once anime became popular, people naturally wanted to go to the source — and that source was manga.”
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But Anirudh stresses that labeling Manga as a comic or cartoon is misleading. “It sounds like something made only for children. And that’s not true. Some of these stories deal with war, grief, politics, and identity. They’re not ‘kid stuff.’ Sure, the format is visual, but the themes are very mature, even philosophical at times.”
Modern manga’s roots run deep. “There were proto-manga forms in the 1500s. But the modern boom started with Astro Boy in the 1960s, and then shows like Perman, which actually aired in India and were quite popular. That whole wave led to titles like Doraemon and Kiteretsu, which many of us grew up watching.”
A diverse universe of stories
Photo: One Piece (1999, IMDB); Ouran High School Host Club (2006; IMDB); and Re Zero (amazon.com) and Kawaii sticker (amazon.com).
Today, titles like Jujutsu Kaisen, One Piece, Naruto, Billy Bat, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Attack on Titan, Hunter x Hunter, and Haikyu!! are popular among young readers. Some are action-packed shonen sagas; others lean into psychological suspense, gothic fantasy, or slice-of-life sports drama. Their diversity, in both art and storytelling, has helped manga find resonance across urban and semi-urban audiences alike.
One unexpected trend is the rising popularity of BL, short for ‘Boys’ Love’, a genre that explores romantic relationships between male characters. “It’s a big thing,” Sharma says, adding, “It’s interesting how many women enjoy reading about two men falling in love. It’s a whole phenomenon you could research.”
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Although she isn’t part of any formal fandom communities, she shares her love for manga and manhwa with her younger sister. “She’s more into horror and thrillers, while I like romance,” she says. “But we bond over it. We talk about the stories, the characters. It’s our thing.”
23-year-old Saloni Negi, a Delhi-based MBA student, says romance in manga often lacks storytelling and creativity, but “BL delves deeper into what it is to love, to love across what is termed as normal, it goes into dark themes but often bounces back to something wholesome making the journey as a reader worth it, you never know who ends up with who and how people will change over the chapters, a wholesome relationship can become toxic and be destroyed in a matter of few chapters.”
She adds, “In places like China, homosexuality in the media is taboo, reading such things often also feels like a form of silent revolt.”
According to her, Here U Are, Cherry Blossoms After Winter, Our Dining Table, are popular BLs a newcomer would enjoy reading. The Summer Hikaru Died is the latest anime addition to BL adaptations from manga, set to release in July, which is a horror thriller about two boys.
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What’s driving the boom?
Representational Images; Itachi Uchiha(wallpapers/clan) and Forbidden Game in My World (Manga Plus Creators by Shueisha)
While anime has long had an underground following in India, the last five years have seen an explosion in access and awareness. Streaming platforms like Netflix, Crunchyroll, and YouTube have made it easier to watch series in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and English.
But distribution remains a challenge. Most physical bookstores in India carry only a limited range of titles, and official digital reading apps from publishers like Viz Media or Yen Press are not widely used by Indian audiences.
India’s Comic Con phenomenon
Part of manga’s rising visibility in India can be attributed to the growing popularity of Comic Con events. Once dominated by Western franchises such as Marvel and DC, Comic Con in India is now as much about My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer as they are about Iron Man and Batman. Cosplay competitions regularly feature characters such as Nezuko from Demon Slayer, Luffy from One Piece, and Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen. Artist alleys, where local illustrators sell manga-style prints and commissions, are among the most popular sections of the convention floor.
“A few years ago, anime fans were a small, quiet presence at these events,” says Rohan Singh, a Bangalore-based Comic Con volunteer. “Now, they’re front and centre. Some of our most crowded booths are the ones selling manga or anime merchandise.”
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This surge in visibility is helping normalise manga fandom among Indian youth, not as an obscure obsession, but as a legitimate pop culture interest.
Low Tide in Twilight by Euja (Anime Planet,2021); Croesus and Incarna (Iris) (Fair Use Wikimedia Commons (DevientArt)
Homegrown creators
The boom is also inspiring young Indian creators. Aparna Chaurasia, a 22-year-old freelance artist from Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, is part of a growing wave of Indian creators inspired by anime and manga. Her original work, Soul Contract, explores the Isekai genre, stories where characters are transported to fantastical new worlds.
“I wanted to do something for the anime industry ever since Class 11,” says Chaurasia, who began watching anime in Class 6, starting with Pokémon, Beyblade, and Bakugan, before falling in love with Fairy Tail. Her manga, Soul Contract, is “a story that teaches people about empathy, the power of belief — keep believing like God, it will motivate you. Everything is decided.”
Chaurasia has showcased her work at Comic Con in Delhi, Mumbai, and Varanasi, and won a bronze medal at the Waves Comic Creator Championship for her 10-page manga.
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Recognising the growing demand, international publishers are starting to make strategic moves into the Indian market. In February 2025, Hachette India announced a major distribution deal with Yen Press, one of North America’s leading manga and light novel publishers. “Hachette India is delighted to announce that Yen Press will be joining us for sales and distribution services in India and we will be representing them exclusively on the 3rd of February, 2025,” the company stated.
The appeal of longform storytelling
Unlike most Western comics, which often reboot storylines or shift creative teams, manga typically allows a single creator to maintain complete narrative control from beginning to end. That continuity, fans say, is a key part of the appeal. “One Piece started in 1997. It’s still not over,” says Negi. “It’s been going on for more than 28 years, and people are still hooked.”
The current arc, she says, is The Elbaph Arc, which she follows closely. “There’s a lot of mystery now. Characters who disappeared for years have come back. You never know what Oda [Eiichiro Oda, the creator] is planning.”
Negi compares it to long-running TV shows with complex plots. “You get invested in the world. In Western comics, characters die and come back too often. It feels like nothing matters. But in manga, the consequences stick,” she says while talking about the death of her favourite character in One Piece.
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For Sharma, manga’s emotional depth and genre variety are just as important. “Romance, fantasy, horror there’s something for everyone.”
What was once dismissed as “just cartoons” is now a multi-genre, multi-generational storytelling tradition entering Indian homes through phones, libraries, and sibling conversations.
From metro cities to small towns, a cultural shift is underway. And in these stories, whether set in Tokyo high schools, magical Korean kingdoms, or dystopian Chinese landscapes, young Indian readers are finding more than escapism. They’re finding themselves.
